Not My Neighbor's Couch
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Kurt isn't thrilled when Blaine and Sam go out partying without him. When he wakes up, he sees what he thinks is his fiance asleep on the living room sofa, but it turns out to be someone very different indeed. Kurt H. Elliot G. Blaine A. Sam E.


**A/N:** _Written for the prompt 'Kurt wakes up to find a stranger asleep on his couch'._

It was a little after two in the morning when Kurt heard the pounding on the loft door. He didn't open his eyes. He didn't care. So what if Blaine and Sam went out to karaoke on the one night Kurt had to work late? So what if they weren't at _Callbacks_ like they said they would be when Kurt was finally able to show up? Who cared if Blaine wasn't answering his phone? Not Kurt. Nope, Kurt didn't care.

But that didn't mean he had to force himself out of a warm bed at this ungodly hour because the Wonder Twins couldn't be bothered to remember to take their keys.

Fuck 'em. They could sleep out in the hallway for all he cared.

Maybe it wouldn't have stung so much if this hadn't been the fifth time this month that Kurt had been ditched and dismissed. This wasn't the only thing about the gruesome twosome that gnawed on Kurt's last nerve. Sam and Blaine acted more like frat brothers than roommates (or friend and fiancé) half the time – leaving dirty dishes piled in the sink, dropping clothes all over the floor, wet towels molding in heaps in the bathroom - and Kurt was getting sick and tired of playing house mother.

The pounding on the door was soon accompanied by slurred yelling.

"Com' onnnn…open (hic) open the door."

"Ugh!" Kurt groaned, pulling the comforter up around his ears.

The pounding and the yelling stopped for a moment, and Kurt sighed in relief. He didn't relish the conversation he would be having with his neighbor Ms. Paginelli in the morning.

Him – a.k.a. the guy who did nothing. Not Sam and Blaine – _him_.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a long, gross, wet, sustained burp.

Kurt actually gasped at the sound reverberating through the closed door and into the loft.

"Oh…my…holy…hell," Kurt muttered as it continued on for a whole minute. Kurt imagined that was his sleek and suave fiancé Blaine belching without shame, with Sam giggling like a toddler beside him. Great. They'd probably turn it into a contest soon. That was almost impetus enough for him to get out of bed and unlock the door. He swung his leg out from under the covers and the yelling and knocking started anew.

"Open (knock knock) the door…open (knock knock) the door…open (knock knock) the door…"

Kurt growled into his pillow. He could see where this was headed. Those two were tenacious when they were together. They'd start harmonizing, turn this into some weird jam session, and be at it until they passed out.

He hated it. He hated that he had lived in relative obscurity until those two moved in. Now he was the pariah of Bushwick, and he hadn't even done anything to deserve that title.

Kurt was going to have to figure something out, but not right now. His shift at the diner started at eight, and he wanted at least three hours of quality sleep – which, at the moment, was slipping quickly through his fingers. He reached his hand out from beneath his blanket, opened the top drawer to his bedside dresser, and rummaged blindly through the contents. His fingers brushed over a string of condoms and Kurt scoffed.

"Yeah, right," he mumbled, "like we're using those anytime soon." He shoved them angrily aside and kept searching. His fingers found a smooth plastic case. He grabbed it out of the drawer, not even bothering to slide it shut again, and pulled the case beneath the covers. He opened it and took out two blue foam earplugs.

He had originally bought the industrial-sized box of earplugs for Rachel after Blaine moved in, as a courtesy (wink-wink), but she moved to L.A., and lately, with Sam around, Kurt needed them more than she ever had.

He pinched them and stuck them in his ears, appreciative of how completely they blocked the sound, but it didn't make his descent into sleep any smoother knowing that even if he couldn't hear them, everyone else sure as hell could.

A short time later, after tossing and turning and spinning completely around, trying to find a comfortable spot on the empty bed, he felt a thud vibrate the wood floor.

Super. They found their way in. At least the hilarity would be confined indoors, and maybe now no one would call the police.

It was barely enough reassurance to help him drift off to sleep.

Kurt woke up in the morning a half an hour before his alarm even thought about going off. He ran a hand down his face and breathed in through his nose, clearing his sinuses, which were stuffed up from sleeping hidden beneath his comforter all morning long. But the sun was up, and Kurt would have to face reality. There was no avoiding this new day and all the complaints it would surely bring. He yanked the ear plugs from his ears, thankful to be greeted by blissful silence.

Of course, that didn't mean that Blaine and Sam weren't there. They were most likely crashed out on the couch, asleep, and probably would be till well past noon. After a long shift at the diner, Kurt would be greeted by whatever dishes they left in the sink, whatever food they didn't put back in the fridge, and whatever clothes they left lying around, while they camped out on the living room floor playing Mario Kart.

Kurt was starting to think he needed to move out of his own place.

He climbed out of bed and walked out through his privacy curtain, reminding himself that he could not care less what happened to his jerk fiancé and his best friend, even as he saw the lump wrapped in a blanket and sleeping on the couch. It looked like only Blaine, but he was covered entirely from head to toe without an inch of skin showing. The only evidence of him was a tuft of dark hair peeking out from the top of his blanket wrap – a tuft of hair that seemed to shimmer in the light. Kurt stepped up closer to him to get a better look. He tilted his head left to right and saw the glimmer more clearly; the lock of hair was coated in glitter.

A glitter rave? Those assholes went to a glitter rave?

Kurt could barely nail Blaine down to a dinner date at a nice restaurant anymore and those two dickheads went to a glitter rave!

Kurt stormed into the kitchen to start his coffee – a single cup, only for him - and to cook himself breakfast, banging the pots and pans, running the electric coffee grinder, making as much noise necessary to make Blaine's ears ring and his head pound.

"Unnnnnggggg!"

Kurt smiled vengefully when he heard a gravelly, tortured groan.

"Can you please…for the love of God…stop that infernal noise?"

Kurt could barely hear him over the grinding coffee and the electric juicer, which he put on for an extra measure of agony.

"Don't expect me to make you breakfast, dirty fucking stay out," Kurt roared, paying no mind to the man rising like a zombie from the sofa, plaintive moans and all.

He heard a low whistle from behind his and rolled his eyes.

_Please do not tell me he's even going to try that now, _Kurt thought.

"No need, gorgeous," a smooth voice – a very non-Blaine sounding voice – said, "but can you bring it down a notch? I think my head's going to explode."

Kurt's finger fell on the _off_ switch, and all whirring and grinding immediately ceased. Kurt turned slowly, praying that the dueling noises were somehow tricking his ears into hearing someone other than Blaine standing behind him. Or maybe Blaine was practicing a new voice for acting class. But when Kurt turned around, he saw a man he'd never met before, dressed in torn blue jeans, a black mesh shirt, and a leather jacket, running a fingerless-glove covered hand through spiky hair, shedding glitter onto the wooden floor. The man smiled shyly at Kurt, crystal clear blue eyes shining with amusement at the expression on Kurt's face.

"Who…who are…" Kurt stuttered, picking up the cast iron frying pan off the stove and raising it defensively.

"Whoa, gorgeous," the man said, raising his arms in surrender, "no need for the heavy artillery. I'm harmless."

Kurt nodded but didn't lower the pan.

"I'm Elliot," the man said, pointing to his chest. "Are you…Ryan's new roommate?" Elliot – temporarily forgetting that Kurt had a heavy metal object ready to fly at his head in a moment's notice - let his eyes roam over Kurt's body, and smiled. "He said you'd be hot, but he didn't tell me _how_ hot."

Kurt shook his head, trying to comprehend Elliot's words.

"Wha-who's Ryan?" he asked, gripping the handle of the pan tighter.

Elliot blinked a few times and looked around.

"Uh…isn't this 7B?"

"No!" Kurt squealed, coming back from confusion long enough to remember that he was talking to a strange man who had broken into his loft. "It's 7D!"

"7D?" Elliot repeated questioningly, frowning as if it had to be Kurt who was mistaken and not him. He looked around at the room he was standing in.

"How…how did you get in here?" Kurt asked, backing away toward the sliding front door.

"I climbed in through the window," Elliot replied, pointing to the open window that led to the fire escape.

"Wh-why would you do that?" Kurt barked, sounding more angry than scared now.

"Well, I knocked on the door, but Ryan…or, I guess you, huh…wouldn't open up." Elliot watched Kurt creep toward the loft door. "Look, I'm sorry I startled you, but I'll get out of your hair." Elliot took a step forward and Kurt waved his pan in front of him threateningly. "Or maybe I could make you breakfast?" Elliot offered. "You know, to pay you back for the use of your sofa? I mean, since you already have a pan out and everything…"

Kurt looked at the pan he held tightly in his hands and chuckled. He let his shoulders slump as he started to relax, realizing that the man with the glitter in his hair was harmless.

"Sure," Kurt shrugged, walking back into the kitchen and putting the pan back on the stove. "Why not?"

"Great," Elliot said with a sigh. "Ryan doesn't get up until after one on the weekends anyway. If you had turned me down, I'd be sitting out in the hallway all morning."

Kurt grimaced. That scenario sounded familiar. He had a passing thought of opening the loft door a crack and checking out in the hall to see if Blaine and Sam were lying out there asleep, but changed his mind and sat down at his flea market kitchen card table instead.

Kurt watched Elliot bustle around, gathering up bowls and eggs and other various items here and there. It reminded him of the long ago days when Blaine would make him breakfast in the mornings. He had told Blaine that it wasn't necessary, but Kurt sincerely missed those days – not because of the food, but because of the time they spent together talking, laughing, dancing around each other as Blaine flipped pancakes and Kurt squeezed orange juice. It was a ritual that started their day, one that Kurt could look forward to. Kurt didn't want to be the center of Blaine's universe; he knew that wasn't healthy. But with Sam always around, Kurt didn't even feel like one of the outlying stars. He tried to talk to Blaine about it, but the focus of the conversation somehow always turned around to the stupidest things, and then devolved into an argument, so that lately it was easier to let it slide when he felt neglected.

Even if feeling neglected was the same excuse Blaine had used for cheating.

Kurt shook the thought from his head.

How did breakfast turn into a flashback of such a dark time?

Kurt looked up and saw Elliot standing in the kitchen, mid-whisk, staring at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"What? Oh, no…I mean, yes. I was just thinking about my fiancé," Kurt admitted.

"Ah, the gorgeous man is taken," Elliot said with a wink. "I might have known."

Kurt blushed in spite of himself. Elliot had called him gorgeous three times in the last twenty minutes. He couldn't remember the last time Blaine called him that.

"Yeah, well, he went out last night with a friend and they haven't come back yet." Kurt shrugged, omitting the bulk of the story.

"If they're together, I'm sure they're alright," Elliot said.

Kurt nodded. He admired Elliot's attitude, and he was right. Kurt wasn't all that concerned with whether or not Blaine was safe. He was sure he was.

Kurt was concerned with why it was so easy for Blaine to always brush him off.

"Uh, you're doing it again," Elliot said, interrupting Kurt's thoughts.

"Wh-what am I doing?" Kurt asked, thanking Elliot with a smile and a nod as he put a plate of food down in front of him. When had Elliot finished cooking? Last Kurt remembered, Elliot was still whisking. Kurt looked down at the French toast in front of him, delicately sprinkled with powdered sugar and garnished with mint and berries. "Wow, this looks amazing."

"Thank you." Elliot set his own plate down and took a seat, looking at Kurt with concern. "Is there something on your mind?"

"Uh…no," Kurt said, picking up his fork and twirling it in his fingers. "Nothing worth discussing."

"You know, sometimes it's easier to confide your troubles to a handsome stranger," Elliot said, wiggling his eyebrows.

Kurt laughed dryly, using the tines to fidget with the mint on his plate.

"It's nothing important," Kurt said.

"Are you sure?" Elliot asked, ducking his head a bit and looking at Kurt over long, black lashes.

It was there, on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spilled, but he decided against it. Be careful who you vent to – that was one of his mottos. He didn't feel like airing his dirty laundry in front of a potential new neighbor.

"Yeah," Kurt said, fixing his brightest smile to his face. "So, are you moving in with Ryan in 7B?"

Elliot knew a dodge when he heard one, but he wasn't going to pry at the nice man who didn't call the police on him this morning.

"Yup…well, for a little while. I go to school at NYU, but there's some mix-up with the housing, so I'm crashing on Ryan's sofa until they get the room assignments straightened out."

"Ah." Kurt nodded. "That stinks. At least you have a place to say."

"Yeah, I lucked out," Elliot agreed. "So what about you? Do you go to school in the city?"

"I attend NYADA," Kurt said, cutting into his French toast and taking a bite.

"Really?" Elliot sounded impressed. "That's amazing. I auditioned for NYADA, but I didn't make it in."

Kurt chewed his food and smiled.

"You like?" Elliot asked, watching Kurt's expression change.

"I do," Kurt said, putting a hand over his mouth to keep from being indecent. "You're a really good cook."

"Meh," Elliot said, "I know how to make breakfast. Otherwise, I burn water."

Kurt laughed, snorting through his nose, which caused Elliot to laugh out loud. Kurt sighed. This felt nice - sitting and talking with no hang-ups, no stress, no drama. This was how Kurt preferred to spend his mornings, as opposed to wondering where the hell his fiancé ended up. He sure hoped Blaine grew out of that, because Kurt wasn't certain he could deal with it for a lifetime.

Between conversations about Kurt's nail biting NYADA audition and the primo outlet shopping in New Jersey (where Elliot was from), the loft door flew open, and Sam and Blaine stumbled inside, laughing loudly, entirely unconcerned with the fact that Kurt might still be asleep.

The sound of their laughter set Kurt on edge, and Elliot frowned at the way Kurt's entire demeanor changed.

"Hey, babe," Blaine said, coming up behind Kurt, wrapping his arms around his fiancé's shoulders and kissing him on the neck. "I missed you."

"I bet you do," Kurt sneered.

Blaine looked at Kurt confused.

"Why are you so upset?" Blaine asked.

Kurt stood from his seat to shrug Blaine off his shoulders.

"I went to _Callbacks_ to meet you, but you weren't there," Kurt explained in a tight voice, "and then you didn't have the decency to tell me where you went. Would you like to explain where the fuck you were all night?"

"Well, we went to _Callbacks_," Blaine said, turning to look at Sam and then back at Kurt, "and then we hit this new club uptown near Mercedes's place. We got a little too drunk to take the subway home, so we spent the night there."

"It would have been nice if you let _me_ know!" Kurt crossed his arms over his chest.

"Kurt, I texted you like a million times."

"Yeah, well…" Kurt pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and shook it in Blaine's face, "why don't you take a look at my phone and check all the texts I didn't get from you?"

Blaine walked up and took Kurt's phone, checking his text message folder, his brow furrowing as he scrolled through the messages.

"I don't understand," he said as he looked through them again. "I sent you about a dozen messages…" Blaine pulled out his own phone from his pocket and looked at the screen, with Sam peeking over his shoulder.

"Who the hell did you text then?" Sam grabbed Blaine's phone. "He's right. You were a number off. _I don't know who they hell you are, but my name's not Kurt. If you don't stop_…uh-oh. You might want to change your cell phone number, dude."

Blaine stopped, standing upright and staring past Kurt, suddenly registering the presence of another human in the room. Blaine's eyes narrowed and his goofy expression became dark.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, addressing the man who stood from the table when Kurt did, hovering behind in case Kurt needed some moral support.

"I'm Elliot," he said, raising a hand and giving a short, unimpressed wave, his other hand shoved into his pocket.

Blaine stared at Elliot, looking at him with his nose scrunched and his eyes hooded with growing anger.

"Wait," Blaine said, putting his hands up to his slightly throbbing temple and shaking his head, "you couldn't find us so you brought this…this…glitter rock vampire home with you?"

Kurt's mouth dropped open. He clenched his fists at his side, his entire body reigniting with the fury from the night before. Did Blaine just accuse him of cheating?

"No!" Kurt snapped, surprised to find that Elliot reacted at the same time, with about the same amount of venom in his voice.

"Do you really think I would bring another man home with me?" Kurt asked, not sure if he wanted to be hurt or just plain furious.

Blaine stood with his mouth open mid-rant, but then he clamped it shut tight.

"I…" Blaine started, trying to find a way to remove the foot from his mouth, "then why is he here?"

"I didn't let him in!" Kurt yelled before he realized how his comment sounded.

"He's right," Elliot added. "He didn't. I knocked and knocked…"

"…and I thought it was you," Kurt intervened, "so I didn't open the door."

"You wouldn't open the door for us?" Sam asked with wide, puppy dog eyes. "That's cold, Kurt."

Kurt threw up his hands in frustration.

"I'm…I can't with you guys…not today," he said, heading toward his privacy curtain. "I have to get to work. I'm going to be late."

"Yeah, and I should really get going," Elliot said, pushing in his chair, smirking at the glare he received from Blaine as he collected his and Kurt's breakfast plate and brought it to the sink.

"Let me walk you to the door," Kurt said. "I'm not sure you know where it is seeing as you climbed in through the window," he added, mostly for Blaine's benefit. Blaine seethed at Elliot as Kurt breezed past him, swerving at the last minute to avoid bumping shoulders with him. Elliot chuckled, grabbing his leather jacket off the sofa – where he had been using it as a pillow – and waving goodbye to an unamused Blaine.

"Kurt," Blaine said, eyeing his fiancé as he led their uninvited houseguest to the door, "I really think we should talk about this."

"Well, I don't have time to talk about this," Kurt tossed over his shoulder, sliding the loft door open. Elliot slipped his arms into his sleeves as he stepped out the door.

"Uh, it's probably not my business," Elliot said, turning in the hallway to talk to Kurt, "but does this -" he motioned inside the loft with his hand, "happen a lot."

Kurt straightened at first, wanting to be defensive on his fiancé's behalf. Blaine had some redeeming qualities – he just hadn't been showing many of them lately.

"More than I like," he admitted.

"You know, it's not my place to say," Elliot said, leaning in and whispering, "but you deserve better than that."

Kurt sighed. He was beginning to feel the same way.

"You're right, it's not your business," Kurt said half-heartedly, commenting more out of embarrassment at having his private issues aired in front of company than because Elliot overstepped his bounds. Kurt softened at Elliot's enduring smile. "But thank you."

Elliot winked at Kurt as he pulled the loft door shut.


End file.
